Sheer Life
by Eldalie
Summary: Love made a bet with Virtue for Marian's heart, and lost it. But if the muse of History gave them a second chance, would Guy and Marian make the same choices? One year before Robin returns from the Holy Land, Lust and Longing bring them together. Confusion, passion, and saving one's soul are on the line. And Marian needs to choose.
1. Chapter 1

_Yes, we are playing in BBC's courtyard. I am sure we don't mean any harm. Rating will go up in later chapters. Lots of thanks go to my super beta Acton1842, who is made of stars and rainbow and filth and is wonderful. Reviews are like cookies, one is always nice._

Sheer Life  
A Robin Hood Fanfiction by Eldalie

Death will come, and it will have your eyes. - Cesare Pavese

Chapter One_  
Archive___

"You simply need to put it away."

"It is too unfair."

Clio, muse of history, snapped her fingers impatiently.

"Life _is _unfair, Eros. Through much fault of your own, I might add."

The spirit of love smiled a mischievious smile.

"I can be devious."

"You can be despairing. You can be enraging. You can lead them to suicide and murder. As you did just now, in fact. So if you feel sorry about it, go and make someone else happier."

"Oh, my darling. If you only knew. The balance of it all. the delicate equilibrium. All the reasons why some may be loved, some not…there is much beauty in pain. A blessing, really. But human beings never see it."

"I expect the tears get in the way. Or in this case, the blood."

Eros sat down. The Archive's chairs were many and dusty, if very comfortable. Leather stuffing surrendered to the spirit's form. Everything happened at once in the Archive's many corridors – everything fixed in an atemporal timeline that human beings could not have understood, but which the Supreme Being gifted with perfect coherence.

There was much to be done. But sometimes, spirits got distracted.

Clio did not usually concern herself with simple archival matters. It was all very straightforward: the _genus loci,_ the spirit of a place, sent the report once the event was fixed, choices made, morals drawn. The event became History, the only true past, and judgment was taken on the guilty. Clio looked over the past, she saw its coherence, its design. She inspired humans to understand it, or at least try to.

This particular report had been a long foregone conclusion. She much regretted it – but nothing could be done. The future was written in the past and the past was clear. The knight was going to kill the lady. There was no way around it and there was no way within it. It was who they were, and it was where they were going.

And now their destiny was fulfilled, she was going to lay it to rest.

Except Eros was not resigning himself to it.

"Give. It. Up."

"I don't think so."

"You have no right."

"I have every right. The girl was an idiot."

"The girl was pure! Too pure -"

"The girl was afraid. She felt the fire. She denied it."

"Because she wanted to save her soul. Some people, Eros, don't want to burn up."

"Of course. Some people want a nice cozy little love to grow old with. That was not my plan."

"Naturally. Your plan was for her to drown her conscience in lust and become an indifferent woman."

"Not indifferent…more troubled. She could have done much. She could have saved him."

"Saved him! I am tired of this, Eros. You can't blame the women when the men do not listen. Indeed, you can't expect the women to be the ones making the right decision. Everyone should save themselves. She did."

"She got herself killed. I call that stupid."

"I call that the consequence of a capricious spirit making someone of that kind become obsessed with you."

Eros' eyes glinted.

"So you think that was what his was. Obsession."

"Obsession! Infatuation! Call it what you want. I do not care. He is nothing. A sword, a pawn, dirt under my nails. He was nothing and he will be nothing. Judgment awaits him and I have work to do."

"My dear Clio," deliberately, Eros put the report in his lap, firmly wedged under his elbows, "I am afraid I cannot let this die."

"It has died. It is written. It has only to be shelved."

"I demand an audit."

"An audit!"

The muse of history spluttered the last word.

"An audit," the spirit of love nodded.

"An audit."

Eros lowered his eyelids, an expression of suffering on his brow.

"Yes, my dear. An audit."

For a moment, a moment alone, it looked like the muse would get hold of the closest volume (a particularly ponderous and prized inquiry into the personal feelings of Innocent III about the Cathar crusade) and throw it at the overstuffed chair and the blissfully smiling spirit seated in it. For good measure, Eros prepared to duck. But the muse pursed her lips, and turning around, barked a single word: "Hellenia!"

Somewhere in the depths of the archive, a table fell over. Documents rustled. Volumes were thrown about. Several voices whispered, a bell was rung, and finally a patter of quickly approaching footsteps resonated through the nearest aisle.

"My lady."

The incarnation of the history of Greece had ink spilled down the front of her pallium and her hair in absolute disarray.

"Hellenia. Thank you for coming and interrupting your work. I would be very grateful if you could explain to this gentleman what you were doing."

The incarnation looked at the spirit. She blinked. She tucked her hair behind her ear. She exhaled: "Eros?"

The spirit smiled. "Indeed. The one who launched the thousand ships."

The incarnation flushed. "Sir, it is a pleasure…we – Helen…"

"Hellenia!" Clio was not going to brooch more delays.

"My lady. Of course." Flustered, the incarnation strove to regain her composure. "I currently have the pleasure of serving on the official trial #3493, proceeding 2, on the ending of Alexander the Great and its evitability. We are currently having difficulty negotiating with Memphia, incarnation of the history of Egypt, whose lack of attendance and subsequent complaint nullified proceeding 1."

"Thank you, Hellenia. You may go back. Please tell the judge I will return fortwith."

"Minos, my lady, is not keen – "

"He is never keen. Tell him to stop whipping his tail. And go."

Guiltily, the incarnation stopped flirting her eyelashes at Eros. With a regretful backward glance – the spirit of love smiled to her just as flirtatiously – she turned and was soon lost into the corridors.

"As you can see," the muse of history sighed, not a little smugly, "I am very busy at the moment. Lots to do. The Head Office awaits results. I needn't tell you how far reaching the ramifications of this trial can be. I simply do not have time for an audit, especially in a matter this small. If you want to take it up with Inglaterra – "

Eros held up his hand.

"I have no need of the incarnation of England. I am not interested in this future. I needed the girl and the girl is dead. I need to go back."

"You want me to rewind," whispered Clio, "You want me to give you a second chance. You know I can't do that. I never do that. I only do it when - "

" – the Supreme Being asks. I know. I wouldn't want that. But i know there have been cases when you have experimented. Created an alternative, and seen which one was right."

"Only in exceptional cases. In cases of interference. In cases when – Eros," the muse bent forward, her tone low and urgent, "Did you meddle with the mortals? Did you _bend _them?"

For all answer, Eros smiled. "I see I finally have your attention."

Breathless, Clio sat down, so abruptly that the chair that rushed forward to meet her only just made it in time.

"What did you do to her?"

"There are those who might explain better," Eros said, "Let me call them."

Numbed with shock, Clio nodded.

"Longing," said Eros, his voice level, "Lust."

The words had been whispered, but the agents of Eros, two among many shades of human love, heard. In a moment, they had appeared among the Archive's corridors.

"My lord?"

"The Nottingham case, please. You first, Longing."

Longing nodded. Her report was typewritten and her dark blonde hair tidily clasped at the back of her head.

"Subject: lady Marian of Knighton Hall. Object: Robin of Locksley, earl of Huntingdon. Case: early betrothal, absence because of war, return. Complication: lustful interference."

Sharply, Longing looked up. Perched on the edge of a shelf, her skirt riding up, Lust curled one of her ringlets around her finger and looked elsewhere.

"Orders: to accompany lady Marian into her journey of reconciliation or break with her original love. Outcome: the lady chose to ignore the interference and renewed her pledge. The case was not forwarded to Marriage as the lady met her death at the hands of the interference."

Briskly, Longing closed the case file.

"They were most in love, my lord. It was touching to see. After their first kiss I was certain they would be together again. But then – "

Again, Longing looked at her companion. Accurately avoiding meeting the eyes of her sister spirit, Lust flipped open a notebook written in a cursive, almost illegible hand: "My turn, I suppose. I must say, I was sorry it was a consummation through iron. Very symbolic, but very harsh on the girl I am sure."

Longing pursed her lips, as if what she had to say might be better saved for a less public venue. Oblivious, Lust read: "Subject: lady Marian of Knighton Hall. Object: Guy of Gisborne, acting lord of Locksley. Case: developing attraction. Complication: return of a former love. Confusion. Necessity of a choice. Outcome: rejection. Fury. Death."

The notebook was shut. Clio had gone very quiet.

"Your chronicles are bloody, Lust."

The agent shrugged.

"Desire is not a tidy emotion, my lady."

Clio turned to Eros. "Very sad. Very terrible. But I am relieved. It all seems very natural if rather tragic. The girl presumably developed this attraction on her own."

Lust nodded firmly. "Guy of Gisborne was quite _gorgeous, _if I may say so, my lady…"

"So was Robin of Locksley!"

"Longing, do _not _play devil's advocate. You know full well you agreed with me."

Longing blushed. "He was quite remarkable, but – "

Clio held up a hand. "I do not undertand where the audit comes in."

Eros looked vexed. "Lust said it. A choice was needed. Choices are very rarely difficult to guess, but this time was different. For a moment, the girl's heart was truly on the fence."

"I thought Lust did not deal in hearts, if I may be indelicate, Eros."

Frustrated, the spirit of love rose, pacing the aisle.

"That was the question. The definition, if you want, of a much larger problem: how far can desire go. How much stronger it can be of a less physical expression of love. When it becomes love itself. And how far can one's virtue resist it. Oh, I do not understand it all, Clio. I do not do it alone. There are so many other things to meddle. But this case was perfect to experiment. To see. And so I – "

"You made a bet."

Virtue had trodden lightly in the corridor, they had not heard her approaching. Now she sat on Eros' chair, her legs demurely crossed under her pleated skirt.

"Virtue. You uptight bitch."

Unperturbed, the spirit smiled.

"I won, Eros, and you backed the wrong horse. Of course your agent is right: Guy of Gisborne _was _gorgeous. The girl was quite wet for him, let's not mince matters. But much as she wanted him, she valued me more. She prized me, and her integrity of heart. You lost, Eros. Desire is nothing."

"You cheated!" roared the spirit of love, all of his suaveness suddently lost. Clio winced, but Virtue shrugged.

"I am Virtue. I do not cheat. You accepted my terms."

"You said to begin when Locksley came back. I held my horses until then. I did not send Lust to touch the girl. But you knew you would be rooted too deeply."

"I did not know. I trusted. Her purity of heart, and the strength of the first love you yourself had planted."

"My house is often divided. You were clever, I admit that. I want a rematch."

"You can want what you will, but the girl chose. We can raise nothing but what is already in mortals' hearts. Not unless you bend them."

"I have no need to bend them. All I need is a month. Let me send the knight to her a month before Locksley comes back, and then see. Let him work alone, undisturbed. One month. Surely you can grant me that."

"You accepted my terms. You were very confident – "

"Locksley had her alone! She never really knew Gisborne until he came back!"

"You petty – "

"_Enough._"

The voice of History was quiet, yet powerful. All fell silent; Lust herself tugged her hem down. Clio rose. And as she rose, she sentenced.

"You have neither pity nor kindness, Love and Virtue, immortal spirits. Cruel toyers of human souls. You have no heart, only a cold curiousity. You took this girl and shredded her. I have seen much bloodshed, and carnage is my currency, but I have a design. You only have chaos." In the pause, Virtue had the good grace to blush. Eros' eyes glittered, hard flints. "What is done I cannot undo. I cannot give this girl you have killed a life unburdened by Virtue, untouched by Lust. She shall long for Locksley and desire Gisborne, and so be it. But if I cannot save her, I can give her this one gift. A certain knowledge of herself."

Clio snapped her fingers, and reluctantly Eros handed the report over. Quickly, the muse scanned its lines.

"I see Locksley was betrothed to her for a year and a day before he left. Very well. Lust, this is your term: a year and a day before Locksley is due to come back. You may awaken her blood before its time."

Lust nodded, her notebook clutched to her chest. Longing looked disappointed until Clio addressed her: "You will not leave her side. You shall be there. And when Locksley comes back, you shall direct her."

Longing smiled; a little smile and a sad one. Clio turned to Virtue and Eros, and her eyes were stern.

"This is not a clean slate. You chose your players, you chose your stakes. I only change the beginning of the race. I will watch over you. And for this audit there is no appeal."

Virtue bit her lip, but Eros smiled.

"I am confident."

"Do not be. You fight yourself."

The spirit of Love opened his mouth to argue. But in a scent of blood, Lust had already disappeared. In a fall of tears, Longing followed her.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thanks everyone for the reviews! Cookies for the writing soul, really. :P And here we finally meet our heroes..._

Chapter Two_  
Rain  
__  
_The forest of Sherwood shuddered under Lust's feet as she appeared on its wet floor, her shoes sinking into the mud. Sighing, she twirled a finger, and the beating rain simply slid off her short dress and knee high boots. She had come from an adultery in the 21st century, but it was better to change into something more appropriate for the era. The mortals could only see her in their sleep, but she would not have them ask inappropriate questions. A moment, and her dress's hem touched the muddy ground, but her neckline had lowered itself considerably. Satisfied, Lust looked around, getting her bearings.

"You are such a slut."

"That is sort of the point, Longing dearest."

Lust turned. Love's other agent sat gloomily under an oak, tormenting between her fingers the hem of her 12th century sleeves.

"I had done such lovely, splendid work. It was perfect. They would be together in death. The sweetest longing, and then an eternity of love."

"Don't be sad," Lust came to sit down with her, "It could still be that way."

Longing laughed. "Of course. With you hanging over my every action, Virtue uninvolved and – "

"…and her choice. We are what we choose. Eros and Virtue may forget that. But they don't know humans like we do, do they?"

Longing smiled.

"May the best win?"

"The best. Or the wildest. Now off with you. I have a knight to bring over."

"And I have a longbowman to remind her of."

Lightly, the two spirits touched lips, and Longing rose.

"See you at Knighton Hall?"

"See you there."

Her blonde hair disappeared under a green hood, and Longing took flight.

Lust looked around, to the dark, damp world under the English rain. There were places she liked better. But the man she was waiting for, him she liked a whole lot. Perfect for her purposes. And yet sad, without knowing it. This most of all saddened Lust: that she could bring down empires, shatter hearts, soil certainties. But where there was void she could bring no true solace, only an intoxication to forget it.

And when she heard the horses approaching she braced herself in the middle of the road, palm extended.

-

Guy of Gisborne did _not _like the rain. It ranked up there with the things that most annoyed him about his posting in Nottingham, with the tardy peasants and the blasted Nightwatchman. Rain. Omnipresent and thin, running down his collar and along his back, drying soft leather to an irritating roughness and making his horse shudder unpleasantly. That, and tiredness. The forest of Sherwood encircled the city with a damp embrace, the rank smell of moss and soil that never quite dried or saw enough sun. And the day was running out fast.

They had been out since morning looking for the fugitive serfs,a useless family of three who had decided their newborn must live free. If they caught them they would be whipped and marked. If they didn't, the wolves would do the rest. Guy of Gisborne tended to trust the wolves.

It made no sense chasing them in the rain anyway. Prints were washed away and dogs couldn't find a scent. But the Sheriff owed the landowner in question and therefore, off to find the serfs it was. For hours and hours trudging through a drowned landscape of leaden sky and sodden forest in which even the native guards didn't distinguish much.

Having reached the road that cut through the wood, Gisborne raised a hand, ordering his riders to stop. Weariness was seeping in fast and the sky was darkening quickly. Every limb felt heavy as he looked back, the very top of Nottingham's Castle a smudge beyond the forest. There was no time to go back there, not now. It might be worth turning left and making for Locksley and his own bed. Or.

"Harris."

"My lord."

"Is Knighton Hall not nearby?"

"Half an hour's riding, my lord."

"Do you think Sir Edward might keep us for the night."

"If my lord of Gisborne asks…"

The sheriff's lieutenant knit his eyebrows. Under Harris' carefully neutral expression he could guess the unspoken words.

Sir Edward who used to be sheriff, and had recently attended the council of nobles but reluctantly. Who never came to Nottingham. Who remained shut up in the woods with his servants and his daughter (herself not a familiar sight).

Another man might have turned around and resigned himself to going home in the dark. Another man might have had delicacy and a certain sense of shame. Another day, indeed, Gisborne himself might have felt the inferiority of the dispossessed who goes to knock on the door of the old landowner who remembers better times.

But the longer they lingered on that road, the blacker the sky looked, the colder the rain. And Knighton Hall just half an hour away sounded like a promise that could not wait to be fulfilled, the domain of warmth and mead, and a good meal.

Guy of Gisborne was not a man of imagination, but the scene was clear in his mind, and he wanted it the way only a very tired man can want to rest. The decision was taken with a brisk nod.

"To Knighton Hall!"

The riders kicked their horses' bellies, followed their leader. Before them ran Lust, her hands firmly on Gisborne's rein, whispering in his ear of the simple pleasure of a lighted hall.

Longing found Marian in the only place such a day would see her: gracelessly abandoned on her back on her unmade bed. Her embroidery lay on the side table, the romance her father had given her for Christmas was abandoned on the floor. Marian's eyes were fixed on the ceiling, counting the fissures in the solid oak beams that had been cut to last for centuries.

Longing perched on the edge of the bed and knew she should do very little to remind her charge of the past: because the past lay lightly, unspoken and unmentioned, all around them. Longing could smell it: the scent of a spring four years before, the last spring of Marian's love, when Robin was still here, her father sheriff, and Nottingham saw her every market day.

She remembered it so well: the thin ring of rose gold that had represented their promise, Robin's eyes the same colour as the green shade under the tree where they had first kissed. Lady Marian, chateleine of Locksley. Countess of Huntingdon. It was not the title, she told herself, but what it meant: the lovely life her fifteen year old self had had so close at hand. Being in charge. Making a difference.

Impatiently, Marian threw away her pillow. He had gone away.

Longing winced. Bitterness could often colour such thoughts, and the strength of Marian's belied the tight blossom of her mouth, the loveliness of the waves of her auburn hair. No, it was not fair: kings could command their nobles' lives, but Richard had snapped up hers along with Robin's. then Vaizey had arrived to take her father's place, and all remnants of light had left Nottingham. Secrets and regrets was all that was left over.

Longing extended a finger, gently touching the girl's untidy hair. Surely there was beauty in her memories? She would evoke nothing but what the girl herself remembered: Robin's lips on hers, the sadness in his eyes when he had come to say goodbye. It was the same past. It could be the future.

_Believe it, my dear. He is coming back. Soon, so soon…_

But it was not soon and today there was boredom and impatience in the gesture with which Marian kicked off her slippers and curled up tighter under the covers. Her secret, her pride would have tided her through any other day, and the chest under her bed would have yielded the cloak and mask she had herself sewn. But today was raining and her father would accept no excuse to her going out.

Marian, Longing wanted to say. Look at yourself. Still a child, really. Only eighteen. Untouched and perfect in this bedroom with still on the walls the flowers your mother painted before she died. Give yourself time. To mature and grow strong in your convictions, a help to the weak before Robin of Locksley becomes Hood. Remember the past and forgive it.

Tentatively, she reached out again. Surely it was not bending, calling forth the memory of how Robin had shared her enthusiasm for the cause of the poor? The Christmas feast when all the peasants had been invited to share their lord's bounty. The holly bunting the walls, and the light in her eyes when he had declared he would pay himself taxes before he let his men…

The courtyard was mud; but if their hooves sank noiselessly in it, still the horses' neighing carried to the bedroom window. Marian jolted upright with the enthusiasm of the bored: drawn to the window where a voice called out for the master of the hall. None came to Knighton anymore on horse: her father's friends came announced and on carriage wheels, too old for riding.

She went to the window and Longing followed, dreading what Lust might have prepared. But Love's least noble agent had done nothing: she held Gisborne's reins like a trophy. She looked up. Knowing that she needed add nothing to the perfection of the scene.

In another life Marian had first seen him by the sheriff's side, unworthiness shadowing him by proxy. She had not looked at him truly but taken stock of him, the sword by his side, the scowl on his face, the arrogance in his voice. He had first seen her with her father in council: status personified in her carefully chosen dress. Six months from now, it would have happened; when Sir Edward would have not been able to refuse a summons. But now it was different.

Now Marian looked down and saw the four man controlling their horses, waiting for the grooms to come out. Three of them in city-issued chainmail and surcoat, faces hidden by the noseguard, respectfully silent. One calling out a greeting to her father who had just appeared on the threshold.

Black hair crushed down by rain. Pale skin in the blue light. Sharp nose against the background, his shoulders broad under the leather. And then he looked up.

Longing reminded her of that day under the tree, Robin's eyes like new leaves. The light was failing. She might not have seen it: the iron blue of his irises sunk in the sleepless circles of his eyes, mirrors of the darkening sky. He might not have noticed it: the gentle oval of her face framed by the window.

But caressing the nose of the horse, Lust was smiling.

She came downstairs when the servant called her, and the sounds of the prepared dinner had been filtering up the wooden steps. There had been the clanging of swords and helmets put down, and a grateful murmur while the soldiers were accomodated in a corner of the room.

Her father's familiar voice rose in fits and pitches, and she could hear the unhappiness in it: for he had lived for the last three and a half years forgetting the city beyond the wood whose loss had so struck him. Marian sometimes looked at his frailty and wondered whether he would have had the strength to be sheriff for long anyway. But the thought was treason, and Marian was no traitor.

Yet.

She strained at the bit while waiting for the moment when, as was proper, her father would send for her, the lady of the house and the one to entertain their guest. Frankly, she was curious. She wondered what the sheriff's men (for they could only belong to him) wanted from them; but her father's voice, however pitched, never rose high enough for her to distinguish the words. The stranger's own tone remained in a low baritone she could only hear as a continuous sound.

Finally, Rosie came up the stairs.

"My lady, your father requests your presence."

"Of course. Am I presentable?"

Wordlessly Rosie came over, expertly straightening her dress, neatening her pinned up hair.

"It is not very nice company, I am afraid, my lady, and I am sure your father would appreciate the help," she whispered.

"Have they come to question him?"

Somehow the sheriff would pay for that. The Nightwatchman would see to it. Rain or no rain. But Rosie shook her head.

"No m'lady. Sheltering from the rain they say."

Marian wanted to laugh. All this secrecy and this upset, for a bunch of wet and tired men caught in the wood by the night. Dear father, she thought, and smiled.

Rosie looked at her with disapproval, but she stroked her hand in reassurance.

"I am sure even the sheriff's men will know how to be civil enough for a plate of supper. Prepare to make them pallets in the hall for the night. Their commander can have the guest bed."

"My lady."

Rosie bowed somewhat stiffly, but Marian had had enough of that. She descended the stairs with the measured pace they would have expected from her, and her father rose at her sight, relief unmistakable in his voice.

"Sir Guy of Gisborne, my daughter Marian."

Of a tale like this one would expect that the moment she stepped down those stairs, they wanted each other. That Lust was standing right by Marian, blowing the right words into her hear. That there was nothing but beauty in the moment. Life does not work quite like that.

Sir Guy of Gisborne was, it has been said, a man of little imagination; and pretty as the girl was he'd only glimpsed at her window when she came down the stairs, her hair properly tied over her plain dress,there was nothing in her that held his eyes. He could not see what in another time it had taken him a while to learn: her beauty bridled by the occasion and its convention. He bowed to her, and she took her place at the table.

"Sir Guy. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?"

"Nothing but the rain, my lady."

Marian smiled. "A little rain was enough?"

Her father shot her a look, but her relief was too great. They had not come for him. Annoyed, the knight tossed his head.

"We have been out hunting since morning."

"Was the deer elusive?"

"We were hunting for fugitives."

Marian's blood chilled. She had always been careful never to cross the sheriff's men in her actvity as the watchman; she would come by night, bring relief. Sometimes, smuggle someone out of a village. But alone, and unarmed but for a knife, she had never confronted these men. And now she looked at the knight and knew she was about to be told of the evil she knew of, and had always kept at the edge of her field.

Forcedly, she smiled.

"A successful hunt?"

"No."

Gisborne looked elsewhere and she enquired no further; the hall sinking into an uncomfortable silence. The flames in the fireplace burnt fierce and hot, they crackled filling the pause. In the corner of the hall, far from the table, the men ate in silence. Sir Edward rose.

"I shall look into the dinner. It is getting late."

He walked out with steps that sounded like gratitude. And Marian laughed, awkwardly, all relief gone into the reminder of what Nottingham had become. Gisborne looked at her and she stifled her laughter behind her hand.

"Forgive me, my lord."

"Forgive you? Is my company so ridiculous?"

Marian looked at him in disbelief. That he could think she was laughing at him? But the knight was serious, his expression dark; and she wondered how fragile his pride must be. She smiled, gently this time.

"Sir Guy, our company is very little to boast of. We never entertain. I am sure you are used to better at the castle. I was laughing at myself, not you."

He looked at her as if he did not believe her, but under his eyes she kept smiling. The firelight lit her features in soft orange and peach, and drew red streaks in her hair. And he saw it then, what he had not seen before: the loveliness of her face. And Longing was drawn forward against her own will, and touched his heart, finding it empty like a cold room in which the windows have been left open. In all his lives, in however many alternatives Clio could conjure for him, Guy of Gisborne would be a lonely man, and one who craved kindness, without knowing how to ask for it.

"There is nothing at the castle that could compare."

The words came out blundering and too heavy, too intense; at odds, as all their words would always be. So different from the easy laughter she had shared once with someone else. Marian stopped smiling and looked own, her kindness silenced by his unexpected keenness. But Sir Edward was not yet back, and Gisborne spoke again.

"I am grateful. For the hospitality. And the kindness."

She looked up. She met his eyes, and they were softer if still guarded, as if he regretted what he had said but did not know how to mend it. And because it had been so long since Marian had felt needed, or wanted beyond the blind familiar want of her own father, she felt the warmth of the words and smiled. A little uncertainly, because she did not know what to make of this knight she did not know, on whose pride she had stumbled darkly. But she smiled.

And he smiled back: crooked smile hanging on a corner of his lips, tinted with bitterness but light on his face. His eyes shone dark blue, almost violet in the same firelight that had coloured her skin. And as he had done with her, Marian could not help but see him again, as if for the first time.

Sir Edward came back with heavy steps and an assumed cheerfulness, promising the roast was soon to follow. His daughter and his guest straightened in their chairs, the conversation turned to the successful war. The pageboy brought the wine, and Sir Edward raised his chalice.

"The king!"

"The king," echoed Gisborne, and Marian stole a glance at him, because his voice was as sharp as it had been before, when he had told them of their mission. Not the voice of a man who wanted to see the king come back. But if she searched for the truth of his loyalty, she could not see it. He met her eyes and tilted his goblet to her, repeating in a lower voice: "The king."

"The king," she replied. Looking at him. And the shadows the firelight cut on his skin, his brilliant, almost feverish eyes burning. Lust stole by her, without touching het yet, under her breath a laughter that unnerved Longing. Before the spirit of carnal love flew out the hall, leaving them behind, her work here too subtle to be done in one day.


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanks everybody for the lovely reviews! In this chapter we find a moment I am sure every Gisborne fangirl remembers fondly..._

Chapter 3

Summons

Marian did not think again about the knight for the two weeks that followed: she watched him go the next morning, bow to her, his blue eyes like points piercing her skin. Wondering; but what, she could not say. In the pale light of day they did not burn as they had done the evening before, and she put the thought aside as she took up again her usual routine. There was Knighton Hall to run. And the people of Nottingham to look after.

The two weeks passed and Longing stayed with her, watching her steps with the anxiety of a mother looking after her daughter. Boredom went away with the rain, and with restlessness bitterness also left. Marian was not one of those who only find their life's meaning in love; but what she had felt for Robin of Locksley – what she still felt, when night had fallen and his remembrance slipped into her dreams – she had called by that name.

But time passed and Lust was elsewhere, and Longing wondered what had been of her. She wondered if Love's other agent had not abandoned the mission, or thought herself good enough to leave things to their own devices. Uncertainty kept her on hooks, and the feel of Marian's sharp edge, an edge that had nothing to do with Eros' ministrations, was the only thing that could reassure her.

It was no time for love, the long darkness of Nottingham under the sheriff's reign.

But there remained in the air a kind of expectation, a current of uncertainty now that this girl's life and death were being rewritten every day that passed. Longing looked at the girl and wished to tell her. To stay away from the knight, away from his dangerous passion and his heart which had forgotten where boundaries lay.

Every day she went about her duties, and night often saw her mask herself, saddle her horse in silence. Become the only hope for many that death would otherwise haved taken. She dreamt of Robin. Longing saw to that. And if she remembered their prideful guest, she did not show it.

But one day (a day that could not make up its mind whether to rain or not, the sky hard and bright, like a blind mirror) horses were heard approaching on the road, and Marian who was overseeing the laying to dry of the laundry turned to the forest. Longing wanted to curse. Out of the trees rode Guy of Gisborne on his dark steed, his men on his heels, and Lust lazily trailing in their wake.

"You're back."

"I never left."

"Hard at work on him?"

"Oh, he's hard already. If not for her for her status. Magnificently compliant, the boy. No. I was planning."

"Lust – "

"I would rather you didn't think of me like an enemy. It makes things that much more unpleasant."

Gisborne raised a hand, and his men halted. Marian rolled down her sleeves and smoothed her skirt, aware of the fact that out in the countryside she looked nothing like she would have been expected to. But she had work to do, after all. and she marched up to the horses with the sure step of one who knew the land she walked on.

"Sir Guy."

"My lady."

He dismounted, a smile lingering on a corner of his mouth. He had thin lips, lips that looked ready to tighten in anger. But he spoke to her with the respect she was due.

"I come for Sir Edward."

"You have no luck. My father is out inspecting the fields. I could not tell you where he is, and unless you wish to tour our whole estate, I am sure you won't find him."

"If you guided me, I am sure it wouldn't be a nuisance."

Marian knit her eyebrows. The knight's gallantries fell dumb on her, who had not been courted since she was barely a child. And who had no wish for them anyway.

Gisborne's smile wavered for a moment; but then he carried on: "I come to invite him to tomorrow's council. The sheriff has missed his presence of late."

"My father has not attended in more than a year. I am sure the sheriff will excuse his old age."

"He is well enough to attend to his estates, you say."

Marian's face closed like a fist before the veiled threat.

"The sheriff has occupied very easily my father's charge, I am told. I am sure he can do without him in this as well."

"I am sure Prince John's will in appointing him had some reason behind it."

He'd crossed the line with this, and he probably felt it. But he smiled at her, still, sure of the ground he stood on. The sheriff's right hand man. And she, a disgraced man's daughter.

But if he expected her to give, he was wrong. Marian squared her shoulders, and her voice rang clear when she replied: "I will relay your message to my father. I am afraid, however, that you should not expect him."

Gisborne's face clouded, and his next words were lower, darker: "The sheriff is an hospitable man, and he does not like being refused. I am sure his next invitation would be more…peremptory."

"I cannot see the pleasure in forcing one's guests. But he is lucky, then, in having someone do his bidding so faithfully."

Gisborne's lips disappeared now when he pursed them.

"I am a knight. I serve at my king's pleasure. And his deputies'."

"But our king is in the Holy Land, is he not? I am sure he would prize such a faithful servant."

There was a kind of recklessness in her smile, and no answer to be made to it. England needed men to govern her and swords to keep her even in Richard's absence, but there was little a knight could reply to an accusation of having deserted his duty. Gisborne knew it. And turning to his horse he concealed his rage by turning to his men and snapping his fingers. He was brought a rolled-up parchment closed by the sheriff's emblem.

"Sir Edward's summons. You will put your seal for him? Or I will wait." The smile on his mouth was now small and tight: "As you wish."

Marian scanned quickly the proffered document, blessing the thoroughness of the chaplain who had wanted her to be able to read. The words were even less open to interpretation than the knight's rephrasing, and Sir Edward's presence was demanded. She rolled the summons up tightly, and replied: "I will seal it for you."

She started towards the house and the knight followed her, his steps echoing heavy behind hers. She turned, her face closed with anger.

"You may wait here. I will be back in a moment."

Rebutted, Gisborne remained to watch her go, his eyes dark. Dreamily, Lust danced around him, playing with his hair.

"She doesn't want him. Stop fawning on him."

"Oh, Longing. You will never learn, will you? How potent a poison rejection can be."

The knight was filled with anger, humiliated as he had been before his men. And anger could rouse other spirits, Lust knew that. Anger. Combined with the lovely curve of Marian's waist under her straight house dress, the copper flashes the hard light drew from her hair. Longing followed her anxiously inside the house while she melted the wax, crushed it under her father's seal. She looked out the window at the knight in black, and like him anger filled her, scalding her blood. Longing searched her thoughts, but there was nothing else. And she wondered what Lust had to smile about.

Marian gestured for the servant to follow her with the candle and the little metal pot of the wax, and she went back outside, holding the document at arm's length, as if it could poison her.

"There you go. Ready for yours."

She held the document up, expecting him to take it. But his pride had been pricked. He looked at her almost insolently, his head thrown back, his eyes blue slits.

"Oh," he said, his voice almost caressing, "That'll do nicely."

He snapped his fingers at the servant as if she'd been his own, and she daren't disobey. She poured a measure of wax next to Sir Edward's seal, the parchment still in Marian's hands. The girl trembled with anger, but had she dropped the document now, the melted seal would have spread and ruined it. She met Gisborne's eyes, hers full of hatred.

"Hold it," he commanded, his eyes in hers, and without leaving them he bit the fingertip of his glove, pulling it off with his teeth. And unbidden, unwanted, Marian's imagination saw them: his teeth, on her unmarked, untouched skin. With his still gloved left he supported the parchment in his palm, his long fingers close to hers. With his right in a fist he pressed his signet ring in the wax.

"My lady," he smiled, and he mounted his horse. One of his men took the parchment from Marian. She looked up at the knight on his saddle, his right hand still naked on the rein.

"Sir Guy," she replied, straight as a lance in that yard, her eyes fierce, and her mind troubled. He nodded, his heels sinking in the horse's flank. His hands pulling the bridle, firmly but gently. And there was Lust's whisper in her ear, when she thought: _like a woman's hair._

He rode away. She watched him go. Before being a conscience or even an instinct, desire in her a thrill that made her blood stir.

Sir Edward came back from the fields to find his daughter seated in front of their house, her eyes fixed on the line of the trees. When she saw him she shook her head like a horse who chases away a fly, and went to him with resolute steps.

"Father. While you were away we had a visitor."

She saw his face change colour as he realised what her set lips, squared shoulders meant: not a welcome visitor.

"You are summoned to Nottingham for the council. I had to use your sigil. I had no choice."

She looked at him with the impotence of one who has attempted and failed. He lifted a hand as if to caress her, tell her it was all right; but it fell away like a leaf in winter. He sat on the bench and she joined him, and for a while they looked at the ragged clouds shredding themselves on the tips of the trees. And then he spoke with the voice of one whose heart is full to the brink with ash.

"I can't. It has been three years and I still remember the day he rode up, the Prince's order in his hand…it was my city, Marian. It had been for so long."

The man of the town who could not reconcile himself to the countryside. The man who had tried for a year to attend every council, and then any other; and finally none. Not bearing to see another in his place.

"But you will have to this time," her voice was gentle, "and it might help. The summons mentioned the enclosure of more public pasture. Surely they should be stopped…"

"Marian. Let me deal with it. There is plenty of pasture."

There is not, she wanted to say. There is too little and no trees so no public fowl to hunt down and barely a pond and no one can cultivate anything, and the sheep grow fat and the children grow thin and no one can cut down wood.

But she bit her lip. She told herself she understood. She told herself that three years of this frustration had been enough to cure her of it. She had steeled herself against the questions, always too many, her father raised: whether he could have done something, even without being sheriff; whether it was wisdom, pretending the world beyond his estate had ceased to exist, whether it was cowardice this long pain for the status he had lost.

She chased it all away; she used the voice of the only reason she hoped would touch him.

"Father…your friends in the council. They will count on you. Why else would the sheriff call you now? Why if not because they pleaded with him to?"

_Because Sir Guy saw that despite what you let it be known, you are well, and Knighton Hall prospers, and they shan't let you get away with it anymore._

But Sir Edward looked away and she could see that he was considering it, rolling the idea in his mind like a delicious morseful in his mouth, and she hung on his lips like a woman starving. But he shook his head.

"I couldn't. it's been too long…no, Marian I can't."

"Father! You…I will come with you. Let me come with you. It will do…me, good."

"Oh, darling. The council is no place for a woman."

"Father. Please."

Biting her tongue. Biti+g it hard not to let the words she really thought out. Until, as she thought he might, he relented.

"Darling. For you. You must feel so cooped up here…yes. All right. We will go."

"Father!"

She hugged him and thought, let him think it's me. A caprice. So long as he never guesses what the truth is.

"I will go lay out your official clothes."

Before he can could change his mind she was giving orders about the carriage, and the chests with their better clothes were taken down from storage. They smelled of dried herbs when they were opened, and the insects had not gotten at them; and Marian spent the rest of the afternoon preparing her father's outfit down to his brushed up boots.

And then Rosie reminded her she needed a dress too.

"The green one," she ordered, but the maid did not move.

"It wouldn't fit now, my lady."

She knitted her brows, before remembering: that she had not worn her best, more beautiful dress since that day she told Robin goodbye. That silly day when she wanted to be a vision, so that he would change his mind and stay, but no beauty was enough to keep him back. She remembered running home through the fields, her eyes full of tears, rage and pain mixing. She remembered Rosie scolding her softly as she pulled out thistles from the fabric, she brushed dried mud from its gilded braid. She had not listened; only looked out the window while the old life drained out of her like a welcome poison.

She had never worn the dress again. Now she held it up and it looked pitiful, the folds burnt into it by five years of neglect. It would never fit her taller, closer frame, and she threw it away like a thing she could never had wanted.

"Do we have anything else?"

"Your mother's dresses, my lady."

Rosie looked at her with a soft look in her eyes, and Marian could not stand it: the heaviness of the moment, and its implied significance. An adult now, inheriting her mother's clothes. But it did not matter; not the way Rosie thought. What she missed was her mother; she could never remember her clothes. They would look to her like a stranger's heirlooms.

"Get a suitable one out."

She left the room while the maid prepared the dress and she stepped out of the house into the evening. The clouds had opened like a curtain and a sliver of sunset filtered through, it stained the sky orange and the night beyond a soft mauve. She breathed in the air chilly with the promise of darkness and sharp with the bonfire the stableboys were making with the old straw. She remembered the knight drawing up his horse in front the house, she remembered his crooked smile and barely concealed arrogance. And the white line of his teeth biting into the leather of his glove.

She shook the thought away and blamed her shiver on the chill of the night. She paced the courtyard waiting out the day, while the smell of dinner rose from the kitchen and the dogs barked for the safety of their kennels.

Longing and Lust rested in the last sunlight against the wall, watching her; and a lazy smile creased the latter's lips, the smile of someone who knows she is doing a good job of her duty. Longing felt the bite of fear but shook it off, because the crisp air of a dying day was too clean, too cold for the other's tricks. Lust who traded in a warmth as intoxicated as it was evanescent. And who was still laying out her cards with the care, the untrustworthy craft of the practiced cheat.


	4. Chapter 4

_Some things human beings do on their own. Enjoy! And thank you for the lovely reviews. :) P.S. Ladies in the 12th century rode astride, as shown by numerous illuminations of the period._

Chapter 4  
Council

The carriage pulled up to the castle's gate, and inside Sir Edward drew himself up, summoning the strength to face the place where he had once been master. The horses had been brushed to a polish and the paint hastily touched up on the axle and wheels, and the driver wore his best tunic. But Marian felt keenly every stitch of her still too-tight dress, and had to cross her fingers not to fuss with her upswept hair. But for her father's sake, if for him alone, she would feign calm.

The guard came to the window and Marian lifted the curtain for her father, announcing him: "Sir Edward of Knighton Hall."

"The castle is closed today, madam. Council."

"We are here for the council."

"I am sorry, madam. I have my orders."

"I am part of the council!"

Sir Edward had grown red shouting these words, his lips pursed, but the guard (sunburnt complexion of a country boy, still, under his chainmail coif) shook his head.

"I am sorry, sir. I have never – "

"Let them through."

The voice was known and Marian looked out the window, knowing what she would see: Guy of Gisborne looking in at them, perplexed at seeing her as much as she was angered at seeing him. Met at the gate and there refused. But whatever surprise the knight felt at seeing her, he masked it well. Briskly, he motioned to the guard, and the carriage was waved on.

Marian breathed deeply and carefully arranged her features in a neutral expression, her hand squeezing her father's. They would not let them see how much this hurt.

They felt the carriage shiver on the flagstones of the courtyard and then shudder to a stop, and before she could muster the will to push open the carriage door, it was done for her.

Guy of Gisborne offered her his gloved hand with a smile, and she accepted it stiffly, allowing him to hand her out of the carriage and into the shade of the court.

"Welcome to Nottingham Castle, Lady Marian."

It was my home, she wanted to say. I played on these stones. But she nodded and turned to help her father out.

"The sheriff will – "

"Ah, my dear Sir Edward!"

Vaizey, sheriff of Nottingham, descended the stairs in a twirl of his silken cloak, smiling a wolfish smile between his powdered lips.

"How long has it been? A year? Two? Can't say I've kept count. Sheriff's job keeps you busy. You should know."

An exaggerated wink and Marian saw the humiliation brewing in her father's eyes; but Vaizey kept smiling.

"Ah, and the excellent daughter of the house, I see! Skinny little thing last time I saw her, all elbows. Skinniness is gone, quite well. A woman should have some meat on her bones."

Marian's mouth opened to protest, but Vaizey grabbed her, planting a kiss on each of her cheeks.

"There there, very nice. You can wait here while dad comes play with the big boys. Off you go!"

He turned her around and for a long, infuriating moment Marian was certain he was going to march her to the carriage; but her father took her hand, drawing her to him.

"Marian is coming with me, sheriff."

"What? A woman in council? Quite irregular, I must say, Sir Edward, quite irregular! They had told me you were going senile, buti f you need the help…"

"Sheriff! My father – "

Her cheeks were flaming and her eyes almost feverish as she turned around, an animal ready to bite, because she could see it, anger turning to sadness on Sir Edward's face; and the sheriff smiled wider because he loved nothing better than the turmoil he could stir.

And then Guy of Gisborne spoke up.

"My lord. The rest of the council awaits."

For a brief moment, Vaizey looked disappointed. He raised a hand as if to protest, then shook it off impatiently.

"Oh well. Get in. Bring the little girl if it makes you so happy."

He swept up the stairs, his cloak modishly rippling behind him; and Sir Edward followed him, his head held rigidly up. Marian tried to hold his hand but he tore it away.

She remained standing on the stairs as the two men disappeared beyond the portal at a clicking of heels of the guards. She looked down and felt rage burning the back of her throat, sorrow pricking her eyes. She would not cry. She would not.

"Lady Marian. Allow me to escort you in."

Gisborne was standing by her, his hand offered; and for once, he was not smiling, he was not glowering. Looking at her, with something in a friend she might have called sympathy.

"I do not need your help."

"The sheriff can be a hard master."

"He is not my master."

She had nothing but his servitude to throw in his face; and he nothing but his help to offer. He bit down an arrogant retort and offered his hand again.

"Lady Marian."

She met his eyes and they were unreadable, without expectation or offense, but a strange mixture of the two, and something else she could not name. The guards were looking at them. One moment more, and it would have been the rudest refusal. Hesitantly, she rested her palm in his. Briefly, his fingers closed over it; but before she could protest he was leading her quite correctly up the stairs and down the corridor, in silence.

She looked around, at the castle she'd used to know so well, and which had changed so little. A few new tapestries, consonant to the sheriff's garish taste; a few trophies of war. The same stones. A completely different taste in the air.

She felt his eyes on her: she turned her face briskly and stared him down. They had stopped: nothing but their loneliness and the oppressive, uncharacteristic cheeriness of the sky beyond the open gallery.

"Sir Guy?"

"The council chamber."

He opened the door for her and she felt the strange relief of the ring of lords seated around the sheriff, the freedom of taking her place behind her father's seat and become invisible in the cloak of his authority. Gisborne closed the door and stood by the sheriff's chair.

"Now that we are all here, lords and their offspring," mockingly, the sheriff nodded to Marian, "I suggest the matter at hand. That is, the new round of taxes ordered by the prince regent to support king Richard's crusade. All in favour of getting it from the mills raise their hands."

About three quarters of the present did. Dazed, Sir Eward kept looking at his hands, tidily crossed in his lap.

"Father," she whispered urgently. A tax on the mills would have been a disaster. If people could not grind their wheat they would have no flour. And without flour or bread, starvation would come stalking like a hungry wolf.

"Silence," hissed Sir Edward, feeling keenly in his mind the exact measure of his impotence. Turning on the only one who would support him the only authority he had left.

Rebuked, Marian stood straighter, looking around: the rest of the nobles looked out with glassy eyes from the fur collars of their robes, uninterested and uninformed on the world outside these walls.

"Right," concluded the sheriff, "Since we are mostly in agreement…"

"Wait. You don't know what you're doing."

They all turned to Marian like one man, some of them knitting their eyebrows in mild curiousity, as if they had not noticed her before. Sir Edward did not raise his eyes from his crossed hands, as if he could not, or would not, listen.

She had never spoken in front of a room like this, but she remembered: the long years in the darkness, hiding behind a mask, doing but never saying what she truly believed. But now the Nightwatchman was Marian; and it was with her own voice that she spoke.

"You cannot tax the mills. The people will die of hunger."

"The people are always hungry if you ask them. I have yet to see them die out."

"Sheriff, how long since you were out there? How long since you spoke with a peasant?"

"Peasants are for working, not conversing with, lady Marian."

"If you bothered to ask them – "

"Do I bother? A clue: no. As we were saying – "

"Sheriff!"

"Sir Edward, if you cannot control your daughter, I suggest you do not carry her around."

Sir Edward winced, before breathing in deeply.

"Marian, be silent."

"But father – "

"Marian!"

He whipped around, facing her, and his eyes were blank; and her words died in her throat, with her careful preparation, and her great uncertainty broke its dam, flooding her with betrayal, and doubt.

"Father…"

"Amusing as the family drama is, I have taxes to get through and a banquet tonight. Lady Marian, out."

The sheriff's words fell in the silence. Her legs were columns of stone, rooted to the ground. The indifferent lords had looked away, and Sir Edward with them.

"Father," she repeated, fury this time swelling with painful strength. The sheriff must taste it in her voice, because when he interrupted her it was with piqued annoyance.

"Too much tongue in your head, Marian. Gisborne, get her out. Make sure she doesn't come back in."

She had forgotten the knight until he came to her: taller and with a sword at his side. To be the Nightwatchman now: to jump and strike quickly, a bow in her hand. But she was Marian now, and a woman who had spoken up when she was not supposed to. Who could give herself away by struggling, or let herself be handed out. Who had just found herself lonelier in a word in which her father refused to fight.

Before Gisborne could reach her, she held up a hand.

"As you wish."

The words came thin out of her parched throat, pain and anger bleeding them out. She walked around the circle and through the door that yielded creaking to her touch, that slammed shut behind her. A murmur came from it but she shut it out, she went rigidly to the edge of the gallery, drinking in greedily the open air.

Sweat and horseshit and a perennial soup for the garrison, the eternal smell of the castle came up from the court below, the sky above still indifferently enamelled with a glorious afternoon. She would not wait by the carriage like an unruly child. She had a little money pouch on her: she could hire a horse from the post in town, ride home. Clear her head. Forget about the council, and tonight go out as the Nightwatchman, warn the peasants to start hoarding their flour.

She rubbed her eyes and breathed in, mustering her resources. Her father did not know. He was humiliated. He was getting old. He was to be forgiven.

"Lady Marian."

She had not heard the knight come up behind her, and turning she almost collided with him. He did not step back and she backed into the edge of the balustrade.

"Sir Guy. Let me pass."

"I must see you out. Sheriff's orders."

"As all your actions. I take the point. I am going."

His lips tightened.

"Allow me to be of help."

"I need no help."

She looked at him eloquently, but he did not budge; uncomfortably she sidled beyond him.

"Lady Marian – "

"Sir Guy." There was exhaustion in her voice when she turned around, an exhaustion stronger than her pride: "Please."

If he softened at this, it did not show in his face. He caught up with her, his tone pressing: "You cannot go back to Knighton Hall in your carriage and send it back. There won't be time."

"I'll get a horse."

"Let me lend you one of ours."

"I have money to hire one."

"And go back on your own? You'll need an escort."

"I don't really have need for guards."

"The woods are dangerous. The Nightwatchman – "

"I am sure a lone woman won't be a very tempting target to rob."

"Lady Marian, I cannot allow you to leave unprotected."

"Unless you mean to forcibly restrain me, I am going."

They looked at each other and in their eyes was the same, twin obstinacy. And Marian's resources of patience were exhausted for that day.

"Sir Guy," she nodded as a brisk goodbye, and started off. He thundered after her and she whipped around, daring him to touch her. And finally feeling her refusal, his tone became more conciliatory.

"Allow me to ride with you. We need only take two guards."

"What is it to you?"

For a moment she thought he would mention his orders again; but with a hint of a smile he replied: "May a knight not care about a lady's safety?"

"Should a knight not respect a lady's wishes?"

Check. They looked at each other and in the silence the harsh laugfhter of the sheriff echoed from behind the closed door. Marian shook her head as if she could chase away the noise. You could not have called it conciliatory, Gisborne's tone, but it was as close to it as his pride would allow: "Lady Marian. Let me be your escort. I will have horses ready soon."

There was that voice behind the door she wanted to escape. And the painful brilliance of that enamel sky to ride under.

"I will wait in the courtyard."

He disappeared in a side corridor, and he must be smiling. But if this surrender was the price of the silence that now enveloped her as she descended the stairs, it was lightly bought.

She remembered her games as a child, when she followed her nurse to the edge of a stream. She remembered the water pooling among the rocks, her clear reflection – another Marian perfectly mirrored upside down, and one which sometimes frightened her. Clarity can be a curse. But she remembered the frailty, too, of that image. A pebble tumbled in was enough to shatter it.

She emerged in the cool shadows of the courtyard, in the indifference of the guards, and she sat down heavily on the steps. In front of her was the empty, threatening space where the scaffolds could be erected, whippings held. She braided her fingers together and told herself clearing her mind should be as easy as destroying her reflection in the water.

A little pebble of willfulness in, and all gone. This day, her father's betrayal. That feeling, stronger today than it had been in a while, of being alone. Nothing new, really. Daughter of a dead mother and of a father who needed protecting. The only girl her own age and status within a day's ride. She had had a friend, once. Then he had gone crusading.

One wishes Marian had seen herself, for a moment, as Gisborne did when he came back to that courtyard, a horse led by each hand: the downward slope of her shoulders, the still proud bearing of her head. The glinting of her hair in a stray ray of sunlight. And her eyes, focused like arrows on something he could not see, far from that day and all that surrounded her. Including him.

"My lady," he said, offering her the bridle, and Marian looked up and her eyes were green and lovely, grey slate under a veil of moss. There was a moment of silence before she accepted the reins, a neutral silence in which the sounds of the castle echoed amplified. Like water that runs on, she thought, this cannot touch me. Nothing left but to run home.

And then Gisborne crossed his hands into a makeshift stirrup and she realised he was offering to help her up, because that is what ladies do when they need to ride a horse. They either go pillion or wait for someone to get them astride.

I could vault this horse, she wanted to say. As the Nightwatchman, God knows I have done. But silence clung to her as the last defense of her indifference, and without looking at him she took the bridle and grabbed the mane. Without waiting for him to push her up she kicked back against his hands and swung her leg over, her narrow, uncomfortable skirts hiked higher than she would have liked. Without waiting for him, she started off, the sun hot and bright on her skin.

He mounted his own horse and went after her, through the marketplace of Nottingham and out the main gate, into the countryside which shone like a jewel in the light. Green grass under the horse's hooves, and the light in his eyes. Ahead of him Marian rode hard and fast towards the forest she knew better than he did, her horse a streak of silver through the trees.

Horsemanship is a knight's trade, and he did not lose her, anger at her stubbornness replaced by a strange exhilaration at their ride through the wood. And the same giddiness of the chase was in her, it tempered her dislike and turned it into the pure pleasure of the run, until the forest started changing and became more familiar. Then Marian slowed down, not wanting to trail him back to Knighton Hall, and coming down to a pace she allowed him to catch up.

"Thank you for your protection, Sir Guy, but home is beyond the line of those trees. I am sure you can turn back now."

"My lady surely would water a thirsting rider and his horse after their efforts in her service?"

"Sir Guy – " she began, and the words were on her lips, words of impatience and annoyance, and the will to stop him in his tracks. But then she turned her horse to face him, and looked at him for the first time since they had started running.

The Greeks used to say that beauty is harsh. And there was harshness in his face that the ride had flushed with the crimson of his blood, in the strong line of nose and cheek. He was standing in sunlight, and it made his eyes transparent and clear, like water in a spring. But it was the shadows that held her eyes, and led them. The shadows trailing down his cheeks and along his neck, skimming the corner of his mouth, pooling in the hollow at the base of his throat, where his collar opened. A triangle of dark skin her lips suddenly wanted to taste.

"Lady Marian?"

She turned her horse and urged it forward, at a small pace this time, and he easily caught up with her. She did no look at him, only ahead, where home loomed closer with every step of the horse.

"Thank you for your help," she said carefully, "I will send a groom back with the horse tomorrow."

"It was my pleasure," he replied, and she could feel it in his voice, his smile, the crooked smile that told her he could never understand what she was thinking. She had that smile in her mind when she forced herself to stop the horse and turn her head to face him. Steady, now, as if she were about to leap.

"Very well. Goodbye then."

"I hope to benefit from your hospitality soon."

"Sir Guy. After today I – my _father _and I, I am sure you will understand, won't be in Nottingham for a while."

"I never proposed you inconvenience yourself. I will be happy to come here."

"Without invitation?"

His face clouded. "Are you refusing one?"

"I – _we_…"the word stuck in her throat. Was there still a we now? What would Sir Edward say when he came home? She could not tell. But she wanted – she needed – to believe they could go back to what had been until yesterday. And straightening her back she said: "The sheriff. You saw how he treated us."

"Your father deserted the council for a year."

"And you would want the hospitality of a family your lord is at odds with? You may pride yourself on being the loyal servant, Sir Guy. But you rarely act like one."

His eyes narrowed. "I am nothing but the one standing behind my master's chair. Much like you."

He sank his heels in the horse's flank; he drew the reins with the gesture Marian remembered well. The gesture that could still trace a shiver on her skin.

"Good day, lady Marian."

His eyes were nothing but the clearest ice.

"Good day, Sir Guy."

She watched him leave, and had they asked her if it was unbelief at herself or him that clouded her eyes, she could not have said. Across the trees Longing came running to her, but the thoughts in her mind swelled as disorderly as a mist scattered by the wind, and there was nothing in them one could make use of.

Longing watched her as she slowly led her horse to the house, the stableboys coming out to get the animal. She gave it over without a word. When she turned to glance at the forest it looked like a black wall, the brightness of the sun making the shadows deeper.

She turned and crossed the threshold with her eyelids half-lowered, trailing the doubt of what she felt into the safety of the house. Stretched out on the bench by the door, eyes closed and a smile on her lips, enjoying the warmth, Lust did not spare her a thought. Some things human beings do on their own. 


	5. Chapter 5

_If there is something Guy of Gisborne is good at, it's saying the wrong thing. Enjoy! _

Chapter 5

Gifts

For the following two weeks there was no us. There was Marian, doing the things she must: look after the house and run the estates and think, slowly, silently think, back to the days when she believed her father was like her. Not someone who could be trusted to vault a wall and feed the peasants, someone she could tell her secret: but someone who at bottom was like her. Who, if he still had the power, might do the things that were right. Now she let go of that idea one day at a time, she watched it vanish, like a ship over the horizon she had not wanted to set sail.

And there was Sir Edward. Who walked the floors of his house alternating between the heavy, meaningful steps of someone who has been wronged and the soft shuffle of someone who is ashamed. And truly shame ruled him: the shame of his daughter catching him out pretending nothing had changed, The shame of allowing another man to put her out of the hall where he had ruled for so long. And had he told her, she might have understood. Let go of the old hero of her mind but welcomed this man, who was old, and tired, and needed help.

Helping was something Marian was good at. And that relationship, however different from what had been, something she would have understood. But the last shred of Sir Edward's pride, the shreds that were not strong enough to protect his daughter, were yet enough to keep him from asking her the small grace of her forgiveness.

So they went on. Knighton Hall, in the best of times the broken hull where they remained cooped up, their spent dreams flying brokenly around like birds with torn wings, now became the oppressive prison of two hurt prides.

Marian would stride out, her shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her hair loose like any peasant maid. She stalked the wood kicking up leaves in red clouds smelling of moist soil, the creatures of the wood starting in a flurry of invisible escapes. Sometimes she'd lie in a meadow, motionlessly looking at the sky peak above the branches, untiil her skirt was sodden and even the rabbits dared to show their coats again.

Then she'd get up with the suddenness of someone who has remembered an urgent thing, and the forest would empty again before her quick, determined steps. But she never took her horse. She walked long miles, but never enough to get to Nottingham. The city once showed like a tantalising promise beyond the trees, just another few hours: but she did not walk them.

She would not have liked the knowledge of her reason not to go.

That day in the forest remained in her mind, an unwelcome, unexplained memory, for Marian could not touch on it without remembering that beauty and the disquiet it had provoked her. She had been fourteen the last time she had felt anything like it, and the words of the romances never descended to the realness of a life where sunshine could evoke such monsters. Sunlight on skin. Nothing more.

Longing watched Lust lazily hang about the house, resting in doorsteps, never more than whispering in the same room Marian was. There were none of the things she had always imagined her sister spirit used: none of the violent yearnings she had expected. There was that disquiet, a lingering mist in Marian's mind, but it was a subtle feeling, and a hard one to burn off. When she evoked images of her past happiness the memories felt distant and out of focus, pictures from someone else's life.

And then the first gift came.

It came of a morning, in the hands of the artisan who had produced it, and who would not take no as an answer when Marian protested they had never ordered such a thing. It was left to rest in its lovely cedar box, the glint of gold catching the light and reminding Marian every time she looked its way. Sir Edward was away for the day and she blessed the accident, one less thing to prey on her mind as she tried to decide what should be done with it.

The giver followed his gift before she could make up her mind.

He trotted out to the house alone, his horse, or so it seemed to Marian, slowing down to a smug little canter as he drew up. Her embarrassment at the greatness of the gift and all it implied enraged her, and she went to meet him without bothering to pin up her hair.

"Sir Guy. I am afraid we are in no fit condition to receive you. Laundry day."

"I can see."

His eyes did not leave her as he dismounted, and Marian knotted her shawl over her damp dress, her hair resting disorderly around her face as if she had just awoken. There was a moment of silence as he looked at her: and Longing felt the intenseness of his gaze like a yank on a long chain. Something almost akin to her own realm. And for one moment she was afraid this might be it - that it might be enough, because Marian hesitated between talking and shying from his look, one foot poised almost to run.

And then Guy of Gisborne spoke again.

"I see you are not wearing your new bracelet."

"It would seem rude to wear a gift I must return."

"Return? You don't like it?"

"It's not that."

Gisborne's face twisted in a grimace of annoyance.

"Perhaps you'd like silver better."

"I wear no jewels, Sir Guy."

"And it is a pity. Let me provide."

"It is not your burden to."

"It could be."

She saw what he meant now, she saw it approaching like a storm; and quickly, before he could go any further, she rushed to stop it.

"I am sure there is no need of that."

"Lady Marian..."

He approached her in what he might have meant as a kind of tenderness; but he was too much taller than her, too alien, too untrustworthy to let him so close, and she stepped back.

"I am afraid this is not a good time to call on us."

"I must make my intentions clear."

"They are clear, I believe: and I must tell you they have no place here."

"Lady Marian, you are of an age to marry."

"I do not think I am the marrying kind."

The words came out quicker than she could think them; and perhaps there was truth in them. Perhaps it had been too long. In an age in which many of her peers were married and mothers, perhaps her moment had come and passed.

Gisborne smiled the smile she'd come to dread: the smile that meant his mind was made up.

"I am sure this idea might be changed."

"I wish you would believe I know my own mind."

It was as if she had not said it.

"I am sure once I have spoken to Sir Edward..."

"Sir Edward must be left out of this. He promised me to another man once."

"A man who has been gone four years. I hold Locksley now."

"He might come back. And you would go back to Gisborne."

"There is no Gisborne."

The answer was firm and brisk, sudden like a lash, and he looked elsewhere for a moment, as if mastering a thought he had no wish to dwell on. When he turned back to her the faintest ghost of his smile was back.

"Even without Locksley, surely you must see the security of my position. I am the sheriff's right hand man -"

"My father was sheriff once. And I am the heir to Knighton Hall."

"And all the more in need of a husband for it."

His assumption was breathtaking, and Marian reeled as if from a slap.

"I need no husband. This is my home. My people. I have been doing this for a long time."

"You must be tired. You are young, Lady Marian."

"My bloom has passed. Much like yours."

Her defiance was now absolutely naked, her pride wounded and smarting. He recoiled and wanted nothing as much as to strike back; but there was no way to. She asked for nothing and he asked for her. There was no bargaining to be done. And he fell back on the emptiness of his securities, solid bricks against her refusal.

"Your father is aging. Knighton Hall will need a man. You will need one. There are dues you owe the crown - should you muster your men for war - "

"Another war, Sir Guy? Surely this one has done enough damage already. I wish you good day. The maid will bring you your jewel."

"Lady Marian!"

He pursued her, his long strides easily overtaking hers, and he blocked her way to the house.

"Is this your loyalty to Robin of Locksley that speaks?"

Yes, of course, rushed Longing, summoned forth like a hunter to the chase, her hands full of the sparkle of Robin's eyes, the twinkling of his laugh.

_Annoying giggle more like. _

But Longing ignored Lust's thought, pressing all her arguments on Marian's mind. But the girl shook them off impatiently, drops of water scattered on the lawn.

"It's my loyalty to myself. Surely it must count for something."

She strode away and he remained watching her for a long, silent moment, thunder in his eyes and in his mind something Longing did not care to name. But she tasted it all the same, the loneliness lacing his final challenge.

"The sheriff does not trust your father. He is weak. And Knighton Hall rich. If his loyalty wavers only for a moment, he is lost."

Marian turned as if he had grabbed her, her eyes slits.

"What do you mean?"

_Don't smile, _thought Longing in spite of herself, _this is not the way. Show her what I can taste and she can't. Show her what you miss and have never had._

But he smile did, of course, seeking refuge in the fleeting victory of having touched her.

"It is as I said. The sheriff has tolerated Sir Edward's discontent for a long time - you might almost call him complacent. But now he has seen how secure his position is, how barely concealed is his discontent...I do not know how long he will keep his own under rein."

"Whereas if I married you -"

"If you married me you would be safe. As my wife and father-in-law I could protect you, I could show you how -"

"How you take advantage of a daughter's fears to purchase yourself a wife?"

Her words were scathing and he recoiled, his eyes darkening in fury.

"You will not accept my gifts. You will not accept my protection. What can I do to show you that I would be a good husband to you?"

"You would not like me for a wife, believe me Sir Guy. You'd tax the peasants for me to relieve them, you'd serve the sheriff for me to oppose him. And any subservience I might show you would be purchased with fear."

"I don't want subservience."

His words lowered themselves to a whisper, and for a moment it hung there, the truth of what he wanted to say: that he wanted her, because he had no one. Her freedom for his loyalty, and her warmth for his coldness. But he was a knight who barely knew how to read, and had learnt too well the price of weakness. So he bit his lip, and drew back, his eyes steel.

"My mother used to say that one may refuse a gift once and one may refuse a gift twice, but one eventually always accepts. I will keep sending them."

"I would not like to prove a mother wrong. But I will prove yours. I have no use for gifts, Sir Guy."

"I can be a patient man, Lady Marian."

"Somehow I doubt it. You had only seen me twice before this day, Sir Guy."

One step and he was close to her, looking down, his blue gaze in hers. This time, she stood her ground.

"I am a man who knows what he likes."

Their silent defiance was not broken when he walked away, going for his horse with the sure step of a man who believes he has won the day. She remained standing like a woman who will not think she has lost hers. And as he took the animal from the groom Sir Edward came back, at a leisurely pace on the mle he used to tour his estates, followed by his steward who bore the accounts.

"Sir Edward," greeted him Guy of Gisborne, his tone cheerful on the edge of insolent, "I am afraid I must go now. But I am sure my lady Marian will inform you of my visit. And my proposal."

What proposal, he might have asked. How dare you visit while I am away. What right do you have to come and go as if this were your property already. Ask, father, willed him Marian. Please ask.

Sir Edward drew himself upright on his beast.

"I trust you will bring my greetings to the sheriff."

There was diplomacy and occasion and keeping oneself safe. And there was this. And once more Marian felt herself abandoned on an empty plain the winds buffeted, and where she had lost all sense of direction, all sense of what was right and wrong.

_I have no need to keep you safe, father. You will do it excellently yourself._

She turned her head away, as if from his shame. To see Guy of Gisborne hesitate a moment, uncertainty on his face replacing that unreasonable, inappropriate buoyance, himself surprised at what he had just been told.

Briskly, he nodded.

"Sir Edward," he saluted. And then, mounting his horse: "Lady Marian."

There was no insolence in that silence, but not nearly sympathy enough. But there was promise, if an unfulfilled one, one that was crushed when he said: "I trust I will find a gift you will like."

She made no reply but the hardness of her eyes. And he smiled then, seeing her unbowed, unaffected. And his eyes lit up, his transparent eyes in that day, as he urged his horse forward and rode off, his back straight, his legs strong on the flanks of the horse, his gloved hands firmly clasped around the bridle.

And Marian who had been left so long to find her own strength respected it in someone else, however misguided, however tainted by the sin of his own hardheaded refusal to see what she considered the only possible truth. His refusal to consider any outcome but the one he wanted.

She allowed herself then, for the first time, to remember that day in the forest: that sunlit beauty and that sudden desire to feel it on her lips. She let it touch her mind and dwell there like a taste to savour. She permitted herself, now he was gone, to superimpose it on today: his preposterous will to marry her, his obstinate refusal to listen. But also that sparkle in his eyes that was twin to hers, that lit them with a blue fire that matched her own.

And when she shivered, now, without caring to give the feeling a name, she knew it was not the wind.

"Get away from her, Lust," ordered Longing trembling with rage, but the spirit of carnal love turned on her and Marian both the serene gaze of someone who knows what she is doing.

"Do you think I made this up? That I bent her?"

Longing bit her lip.

"Perhaps not. But her wanting to...taste, his skin, as if..."

"As If, my dear? As if I could not, right now, touch her and show her exactly what it would be like: how he could tilt her head backward and hold her hair like a rein, what her nails would feel like sinking into his skin, the exact contour of his body pressed against hers, and then -"

But then, Lust interrupted herself, a smile on her lips smug enough to put Guy of Gisborne's to shame.

"I don't want you quite wet for him yet, not you, darling, someone around here needs to keep their head, not to mention their undergarments, on. But if you think what I am doing here, what I do at all, is the simple business of getting people to want sex, then that is not me. That is bodies and mating and the biological need to carry forward the species. All very efficient. And very dry, I might add."

Affectionately, she tucked back a loose strand of Marian's hair as the girl returned to the house.

"I might, just might have a hand in that, but a fingertip, you understand, not fine work at all. But real, true Lust is different. It's a complicated, delicate thing in its very violence, brittle iron that is shattered the very moment it sinks into flesh. Made of many things. Pure emotion, written on the body. In it. In tense muscle, and thick blood, and viscous humour. In teeth, and tongue, and nose. Without escape and without reprieve, because you will not believe, Longing beloved, that true Lust can be extinguished in one sitting, burnt out like a bonfire on its own stake. Oh no. It flames on, and feeds itself, and brings you back. Begging for more on bruised back and bended knees."

Thoughtfully, Lust flexed her fingers, and her spirit's eyes allowed her to see, still, the black stain that was Guy of Gisborne, running through that forest. Her perception knowing too well what ran through his mind.

"It's not tidy, and it's not decent, and it's not nice, but it's what I do. And in its own way, I believe it's sacred. A ritual. If you will, a sacrifice. Because it can hurt you and cut you to the bone. Kill you, even. Not that it doesn't carry its own reward. It feels like nothing else. When I peel back the skin, and salt the wound. Sheer life."


End file.
